Everyone must have noticed the recent fuel shortage, a friend of mine went to 9 different petrol stations looking for unleaded last week, it’s ridiculous. And a petrol attendant told me that about 200 stations in Gauteng had no unleaded.

Now it looks like the department of minerals and energy could cut the petrol price by a whole whopping, wait for it, 7c!

WOAH! HOLD THE PHONE!

How would oil companies survive by making such a sacrifice after inconveniencing thousands of motorists? Wow, they sure are swell. Increase the price by a gazillion bucks during the year, then drop it, just a smidge. The coolest thing is, is that it’ll probably happen after most people get back from their holidays, so those long trips will be burning current-priced fuel.

I bitch. And I moan. But I can’t do a goddam thing about it. Oh well, it helps a little. Happy driving!

So it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Fran from Goldfish’s work. Well, even more so now that she’s launched Cake i.e. gadget guru for ladies.

What I like most about the site is that it’s classy, like the Ann Summers stores in the UK. That, and the fact that the products help me get laid more often, and as you know at 31, if you don’t exercise it on a regular basis, it falls off.

Cake’s only downfall is that they don’t sell this yet. Seriously, 9 out of 10 chiropractors guarantee that she’ll cum so hard her back will spasm

So this Christmas give the gift that keeps giving.

Oh, and don’t worry, I’m sure Fran has diligently tested all her wares herself, you know, for quality control…!

David over at Pseudo-random ramblings has conducted an interesting experiment using hellopeter data to measure where the banks stack up against each other in terms of compliments vs complaints, high here is bad i.e Nedbank comes off worst (surprise surprise).

Pop over to his post to see how he got this result, he says it’s not scientific, that may be true, but what it is is real. It’s authentic numbers based on real-life data.

The banks (business in general) would do well to do more of this less empirical research…!

PS. I’ve written a wee bit more detail on this over at “Hello_World”

Once upon a time, not too far from here, live a man called, um, Dan. Dan was built like a brick shithouse, and had a willy that stretched for miles. Anyway, Dan bought a melon about three weeks ago, assuming it would be ripe within the next week. Little did he know, that he had purchased the most stubborn melon known to man, the Stubbelon!

Every morning Dan would walk over to his kitchen counter where the melon sat patiently waiting. He’d prod it, knock on it to see if it’s hollow enough yet, but no change. Every day was the same. The Stubbelon refused to ripen. Then one day, much like today, Dan felt he’d just had enough. He grabbed that fucking melon, threw it on the carving board and cut it into two even(-ish) parts.

It looked like heaven in a melonicious skin cup. He scooped the pips and unnecessary juice into the bin, then stood above it with a sense of pride and power, it was god-like. He grabbed his trusty spoon and struck that fucker with all his might, but to no avail.

The spoon had only managed to penetrate about two centimeters in, and Dan was definitely not used to this! He grabbed another spoon, sharpened it with his trusty knife sharpener handed down to him by his grandpappa, and took that bitch like it was prom. It was magical.

The task was fierce, and it tasted like crap, but Dan didn’t care. It was either him, or the melon. He had no choice.

Dan: 1

Stubbelon: 0

THE END.

Also in the series: ‘Dan and the ungrateful tambourine’, ‘The day after the day before that day’ and ‘Really Dear, it hardly ever happens to me’.

Just so you can never accuse us of not reading our comments…!

(PS. if you think our posting style has just improved, you should probably leave here and head off to splattermail or chumpstyle, they’re far better at this than we are.)

I don’t want:

CorelDraw, Vicodin, cheap pharmaceuticals, wristwatches, Новая коллекция, low priced software, OEM Software, to change my PayPal account details (didn’t even know I registered), Продажа коттеджей, to reply to your lottery winning notification, Ci-iallis Sof-tabs, 貴方の希望は, to help a dying relative of yours, and the list goes on.

My daily spam content is filled with absolutely nothing worth looking at.

I would, however, think about Viagra, ‘cos now they’ve stopped with the “Make her worship you”, “You owe it to your lady friend” and “er-ektile di_sfunkshin”  mails to try fool the system, and started sending me pics.

How cute.

Kinda gets you into the Christmas spirit doesn’t it?

Here’s 4 blogs that’ve been lighting up my news reader lately…

Digital Howl: Latest games and tech stuff

Urban Trash: Very cool, but sadly truncated

Mark’s digital farm: Random, but rad thoughts (Thanks Martin)

GadgetBlog: My fav shop, gadgetguru, now has a (very new) blog.

Peas on toast: My daily soapie, like Loving with permalinks.

Check em out…!`

For those of you not-in-the-know, my puppies got sick with the Parvo virus in early October, the vets were able to save Lucy, but Snatch unfortunately passed away on the 8th of October. I wasn’t able to get a friend for Lucy as the virus can apparently hang around the garden and stuff for up to two months.

Exactly two months later, I walked into the house with the cutest thing ever. I’d like you all to say a big hello to the newest member of our household, Mickey.

He’s a cross (but majority I’m sure) Jack Russell, with something else. Also from the SPCA, Mickey has adjusted quite well already, and as you can see, Lucy is chuffed with the new company.

Update: He’s already tried to hump Lucy, thrice. That’s my boy…

Very clever.

I’m well thankful to coda for pointing me to SA’s bitchin’ new search engine, Jonga (Xhosa: to look or aim)

It’s fast, keeps a nice search history, and has a (albeit horribly large) firefox toolbar, mostly though I like the very nifty preview function.

(Okay so really I’m just stoked that if you search for the word blog, we’re the first blog you’ll find, and if you search for the word Rich, we come in at #5)



I’m also well impressed with how founder Alistair Carruthers really seems to be listening. He’s commented on issues brought up in coda’s post, and in some cases fixed them already. Nice.

The two tweaks I’d make, would be to make a logo click return you to jonga.co.za, and the option to display more than 10 results.

Go find something…!

Well paint me red and call me Susan, looks like the whole Gavin Sharples issue is sorted. We finally got to meet with him on Monday, and once we got the lawyers to shut the fuck up, we spoke. Turns out (and I want to stress that we were not told to write this) the guy was pretty cool about everything, basically saying that if we can get the page lower on Google and remove his name from the site, we can just let everything rest, no more lawyers fees and no damages.

For the record, we have spent between R40k – R50k on our lawyer alone, we need to cover Gavin’s legal bill, so I guess it will be close to double. That’s then a nearly R100, 000.00 slap on the wrist.

My wrist is pretty sore.

It seems to me that the only people that do well in all these things are the lawyers, the business model is flawed, it’s simply not in their best interest to get something sorted quickly, I’m telling you it looked like both lawyers were a tad shocked and upset that things all got settled so easily.

Anyway, bottom line is that the dude was far nicer about everything than I’d expected, which made us feel a bit guilty. There’s a lesson in this, and it’s not the money I’m referring to here, but sometimes it’s better to think before you type.

Perhaps then, I should have spent a little longer thinking about the title of this post…!

Every month or so we get Fran from Goldfish to design us a new look for our (blog driven) website, as well as our letterheads etc. We start with an idea, she makes it happen. Basically we change our corporate ID about as often as a (insert something monthly) , that’s our brand you see?

Anyway, I’m stoked with this month’s look, it just went live, and will probably stay live until the end of Jan, have a look, and if you want you can see the old sites here.

Fanks Fran…!

Here comes Telkom!

Nuf Sed wrote a great post on tmtd.biz last week on Telkom’s VoIP service, TelkomInternet Communicator.

Basically it’s an alternative to Google Chat or Skype, but with a few ever-so-minor differences. Read all about it.

This seriously does prove that big companies like Telkom simply have more money than brains…!

My good friend, The Reverend Wright, has started a podcast, it’s called Slashdogs Radio and is currently set to be released monthly, the guys look at the punk and indie rock n roll scene (both locally and internationally), discussing the bands and spinning the tunes, I’m halfway through the first episode, it’s very cool.

If punk influenced rock n roll’s your thing, you should consider subscribing…!

This week I read “Spud” by John van de Ruit. Damn but it was good. The story takes place in 1990 in a boys boarding school not far from Durban (read: Michaelhouse), and is about Spud, nicknamed for his pre-pubescent nether region. Actually the story is by Spud, it’s his standard 6 diary.

Spud tells you about his first love, his first kiss, his sporting highlights, his gran (The Wombat) and his future career as a freedom fighter. It’s not just the stories he tells though, it’s the way he tells them, lads this will bring back memories – I guarantee you.

Shit, I actually laughed out loud while I was reading this, people in Seattle, Cresta were looking at me funny. Oh, and there may have been a tear too.

Fucking brilliant…!

PS. There’s sharting too.

Stop fucking phoning me!

Seriously, if I want fucking insurance, I’ll get my own, I don’t want your brain-dead, script-reading, call centre people telling me, “Nedbank would like to thank you for your continued support, and as a thank you have prepared a special package for you underwritten by Hollard.”

Are you on drugs, how the hell is that a thank you? if you want to thank me, buy me a fucking lunch, or better still, discount my bank charges, you are after all, the most expensive out there.

Oh, and while I have you, if I want my overdraft or credit card limits increased, I’ll ask, I’m sick to death of calling you every time you do this to get you to drop it again. Stop fucking with my accounts, I’m the client, you’re the service provider, it’s time you learnt this.

Lastly, if your IVR makes me insert my card number, expiry date, and first 6 digits of my ID while I’m holding, why does your operator need me to give it again when I (finally) get through?

Get your shit together, as my man David pointed out the other day, you’re not doing so well in customer satisfaction ratings.

Shock. Horror.

Maybe if you spent as much time and money on your customer service as you do on your bloody golf tournament you wouldn’t keep losing clients.

Bah humbug,

Rich…!

Update: Hmmm, this gem has potential.